The Beauty in Short Shorts and Thunder

Thunder! "Sound of the guns beatin' in my heart. The thunder of guns tore me apart. You've been...thunderstruck!"

Good old AC/DC. Those guys are great. I can never see a storm now without that song kicking any previous one of my thoughts to the curb and playing on loop in my head. Seriously, I could be thinking about anything, and if a bolt of lightning blows up the periphery of my eyesight, my mind instantly thinks of that sick-ass guitar riff. For instance, I could be philosophizing on the unjust prejudice that introverts face in a society praising the extroverted ethos of sociability. If outside goes sparky-sparky-boom, Brian Johnson's voice echoes through my brain dome.  ♪ "And there was no help, no help from youuuu!" ♪

Meanwhile....

With a hurricane on its way, I got to thinking about how much I've missed seeing a good storm. As it turns out, I can't even write an article about thunder without talking about AC/DC. And in case you were wondering, no, this article is not going to be about Angus Young strutting his short shorts on stage. Instead, it'll be about the oft villainized, yet rarely glorified. The terrific and terrible. The inner demon of the skies unleashed from an ancient slumber to wreak havoc upon the Earth.   

"Pigeon droppings?"

Worse.

"What's worse than pigeon droppings?"

They're in your hair. 

This article is about thunder. Or as I like to call it -- sky farts. It's also about the mistress of sky farts. The daunting and all powerful splooge of Thor, lightning. 

Now, don't tell this to anyone. Me and stormy weather have a bit of a thing going on. There's just something so ethereal about the PMS of the skies that people like to call storms. I get goosebumps coating my skin like some placid slacker version of chickenpox. The same goosebumps you get when you realize that I'm standing by your window.

"Lepth mee en pthlease!"

It was not too long ago I discovered my fondness for sky farts. About two years back, I was listening to some AC/DC, you see, when I heard the sky let one rip. And it was a right nasty one. To best illustrate how powerful this thing was, imagine Fat Bastard was standing over my house, but he's about eighty times fatter and bastardy. And he just popped a squat over my roof and farted. I mean my walls were shaking, man!

So naturally, I went outside to experience the chaos first hand. And experience it I did. There was no rain, but the wind howled around me, and the trees rocked back and forth like headbangers at a Trivium concert. I looked above and saw lightning fill black clouds with white hot energy. How I managed to avoid getting struck by it eludes me to this day. You would think that lingering beneath fearsome death clouds tearing the sky apart with 50,000 degree bolts of electricity would be enough to do me in. Or that it would scare me off. Instead, I sat down and started meditating.

After all, you can't really meditate unless you're in a peaceful environment. 

Yes, I know. That's probably one of the weirdest things you've ever heard anyone do in a thunderstorm. Or, in general. But, that's me for ya! I don't really know what encouraged me to do that at that moment. It really was a spur of the moment decision. And it was also a mildly uncomfortable one because the ground I parked my butt on happened to be a parking lot. I have to admit that it felt pretty epic. The adrenaline coursing through my veins awakened me. As the thunder rumbled above, so too did something primeval rumble in me. And it wasn't the Taco Bell I had earlier.

I had an intense connection with nature then and there, the likes of which I thought wasn't possible. Meditating beneath all that chaos stirred new feelings in me. I was overcoming the fear of nature's power and instead, embracing it. I felt energy flow throughout my body, as if it were remolding my inner workings.

It felt about this epic. 

I haven't done anything like that since. But anytime a storm comes ramming through town, I take a step outside and watch the electric dance of the skies. Thunder the beat, and lightning the dancer. As chaotic as a storm may be, I always find something beautiful in them. Because of that, I believe we can all find beauty in whatever we're looking at, be it monsters, demons, the emptiness of space, and even Satan's butt cheeks.

To me, life exists in a state of balance, all things fluctuating between two ends of a spectrum. Chaos and order, for example, or love and hate. This is a principle based on Yin and Yang. So, as destructive as a storm may be, it has a constructive purpose as well. Did you know that storms provide 50% of the rainfall in the US? Or that their powerful winds knock down old vegetation and distribute seeds and pollen for new growth? They even act as a cooling mechanism for the Earth.

I guess what I really want to say is, the next time you see someone like Angus Young wearing god-awful short shorts, just remember he is also the man responsible for creating that amazing guitar riff.

* \m/ *

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If you liked this article, go ahead and follow me on the link of your choice to know when the next one's coming. You have no idea how happy I'd be if you did so. I would dragon-kick a baby out of sheer joy!

Axel Fretson                                                                                         Axel Frets

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Are Ghosts Real? Films and Stories of the Paranormal

Have you ever been haunted? This might be an off-beat question, but I feel it is a serious one. Some people reading this now can say that 'yes', they've experienced a haunting once. A smaller number will say that they've been haunted several times throughout their life. Whatever the case may be, there are numerous documented cases of hauntings and footage of Youtubers claiming "I totally saw a ghost, you guys. Like, for real!"

Being the bowels of the internet since 2005.

The rest of us, however, have not experienced this phenomenon. For this group, whether it is a blessing or misfortune is subject to an individual perspective. I, for one, find the idea of ghosts and haunted houses to be spookalicious. And, though I have not been haunted in the strictest of terms, I have experienced my fair share of paranormal events. Sadly, I have not documented any of them on Youtube. I have, however, compiled a list of stories and videos hinting that Casper might just be real enough to be eating all your Cheerios right now.

If it's the original kind, he can have 'em. 

Now, let me take you on a ghoulish journey through the dark, damp and twisted alleys of the Interweb's spooksville.
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Case no. 1: A Triple Decker Specter with Cheese

Credit: ODE

This video is actually three ghost videos in one. Because one can never have enough horror. Each of these offers one of two profound notions: 1) striking evidence of the existence of ghosts or 2) brilliant editing. And yes, even though my mission is to sway you into belief, I can be quite scrupulous, especially when it comes to videos. So, I will not deny the possibility that "It's totally fake, dude!" What I offer, folks, is a canvas for you to paint your perspective on and let you be the judge. So paint!

Just not like this. This is the painting equivalent of a Youtube comment.

Video 1

The first video deals with some security cam footage from a hotel in Singapore. Two security guards are walking up to an elevator, most likely discussing how thin their wallets are thanks to living in the 13th most expensive city in the world. Unbeknownst to them, one camera picks up a rather odd light fading in and out within an elevator...the one they're happily walking right into. 

So, they walk in and then...wait for it...nothing happens. They go in and up. Just regular elevator business as usual. Probably talking about how at least their money isn't being squandered by illegitimate politicians thanks to their corruption-free economy. (I don't know what Singaporean security guards talk about, OK?) 

The fun starts as soon as they begin walking out. The figure of an elderly woman appears behind one of them. She is standing in the same spot as where the light was flickering before. Then, the apparition starts staggering slowly behind them, possibly trying to offer them a home-baked pie, but being unable to reach them thanks to her feeble old-lady legs. 

She is literally standing right where that guy was just a moment ago. That is creepy stuff. If someone showed this clip to that dude the next day, he'd go paler than the Stay Puft Marshallow man...smothered in bleach. 

In all fairness, this how I look after being scared. 

Video 2

The second video is just as creepy as the first. A man filming with a webcam at night (with the lights turned off for some reason) takes a peek outside his bedroom door. At the far end, a dark, huddled object is sitting in the corner. It appears to be the figure of a small child, transparent to the point you can see the wall behind some of it.

He stares at it for some time, not making a sound. He then shuts the door and starts going right back the other way. But, curiosity gets the better of him and he chances another peek out the door. This time, that child is halfway down the hall with arms outstretched. He looks at it in possible bewilderment for a couple seconds, then slams the door and makes a run for it. 

NOPE!

The sheer amount of "Holy F***!" emanating from the guy had me laughing like a madman. I can't blame him at all, however. From my exquisite deductive reasoning, I venture that the thing staring at him is the goddamn Chucky doll. This man is a warhero compared to me. If it were me, those couple of seconds of filming would have including shitting my pants.

Audibly.

Video 3

Here we can see various unidentifiable objects moving among the distant foliage. They seem to be lollygagging, like they're a group of stoners that just discovered a huge plot of cannabis. Stoners with the power to levitate, that is. Just beyond that rock to the left is an apparent 10 foot drop. Yet, the objects can be seen simply walking right over it as if air was a doormat. 

Like Jeff from accounting. 

So, are any of those videos substantial proof of the existence of ghosts? Most likely, they're not. However, if these videos truly were not edited or tampered with in any way, then I think it's about time that Ghostbusters was a real thing. 

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Case no. 2: Scooby Doo Senses a Mystery

This lady was so pissed off at her dog barking in the middle of the night that she decided to film what the fudge was going on. She set up a camera at the source of the noise, and had it film while she slept, praying that she could have one night without Scooby throwing a tantrum. Regardless of whether she got some decent Z's, the footage she would see the next morning would throw all that shit out the window. Just like people did in the good ol' days before they invented plumbing.

The good ol' days.

For those who haven't watched the video, it consists of a dog running into frame and quietly whimpering as lights go on and off just outside. The more rational folk might claim that a squirrel or something tripped the sensor, and the dog simply hears one scurrying outside. This becomes a whole lot creepier and harder to explain when you notice that the curtain rises up every so often. On its own. Who's doing that? It's not the dog, that's for sure. Finally, what takes this to "I totes just saw a ghost" level is that if you look very carefully near the bottom right corner of the door, there almost appears to be a skull lingering in the background, staring directly at the camera. 

Is that the mastermind behind all this? Is this what the Red Skull has resorted to after being defeated by Captain America? Creep the Scooby Snacks out of little dogs? We may never know if this is the truth or not, but whatever the case, I was feeling some serious goose pimples going down my spine. All the way down. 

Down to my clenched butt cheeks. 

The deal is, the face may or may not be a face at all. Human beings have a tendency to turn random objects into faces as long as they fit the proportions. That's why a colon and parentheses line [ :) ] are perceived as a smiley face. This is thanks to a concept called apophenia, where the brain turns meaningless data into patterns. Just one example of this is seeing faces in a group of random objects. I like to think that our brains just get lonely sometimes and create a face just to mess with us and pass the time.

Even if its just my brain being a dick and making me see a fake face, I still want to know how the curtain rose on its own. Does the dog have psychic powers? Is that the plot twist all along? Is M. Night Shyamalan the one recording?
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Case no. 3: Confused Ghost Lady Thinks Child is Her Own

This is a story written by a girl that has seen a ghost with her very own eyes. I like these types of stories. The written word has a different aura from a video clip. Even though they run the same risk of being fake like some videos, at the very least you can't argue that it's photoshopped.

Pictured: An actual, totally real, not photoshopped image. 

The set-up is typical: she moves in with her family to an old-fashioned house with many years of history. It doesn't take long for the spooks to kick in. A myriad number of oddball shenanigans occur. Some such include small stuff, like her feet being tickled by some invisible force. Others include a normally placid dog starting to howl and jump around as the room turns dead cold. The good stuff comes later.

After a while, she learns that all their cleaning ladies had been scared out of their sexy maid outfits by a ghostly apparition.

The search for this pic was surprisingly not NSFW.

This ghostly apparition eventually revealed herself to the girl, who was innocently combing her hair in front of a mirror. As she was doing little girl things, she saw in the mirror the ghost's reflection. Judging by the shoulder length hair, knee length skirt, and white shirt with a half top tied in the middle, this ghost was actually a young woman instead of some cliche old, creepy hag. The creepiness factor, however, is not to be ruled out, for the ghost had her hand right on the girl's shoulder. And when the little girl turned around to see her, she saw a shadow standing right beside her. She looked at the mirror again and could see the shadow reflected in the mirror. Then, it all of a sudden vanished like Stan's money at that South Park bank.

"And...it's gone." 

A psychic was eventually called in, and the results were chilling. It seems that every person who has lived in the house has had some kind of connection. It turns out that the girl's room is where the ghost lady died. It was also the same room as the ghost's daughter. Why is this important? The ghost lady thought that the girl was her own daughter. Even when the family moved out, the girl still saw her in another house. A brand new one where they were the first residents. She was followed.

Fun fact: The psychic knew the ghost lady to have been a Mormon in life, and one that hated rodents. The girl and her sisters, by the way, each got a pet rodent as a gift while living there. Want to know what happened to the cute little fur balls? You guessed it! They all died! One of starvation (officially diagnosed by a vet even though it had eaten 5 bowls the day before), one murdered by another (not at all typical from female mice like the ones they had) and the third from a random cut in its rib cage.

Coincidence?
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If you were foolish enough to have been reading this before bedtime, take solace in knowing that if a ghost materializes in your room, at least you already have chills running down your back. That's at least something, right? 

* \m/ *

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In the future, I'll continue compiling more ghost stories and videos. I plan to make this a series. So, follow me on either Twitter or Google + (below) to stay tuned for more ghost compilations and other wacky articles! Your support is just the inspiration I need to keep writing! 

Follow @AxelFrets                  Axel Fretson

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Femur Found on Mars?! A NASA Cover-Up?

Image Credit: Examiner.com

What we have here, folks, is a funny shaped rock. It looks like a femur, the leg bone latched just below the pelvis like that one annoying guy Ted grabbing onto your leg after you've both fallen off the edge of a cliff and are holding on for dear life. You kind of want him to let go because he happens to be obese, and the strain he's placing on your leg is starting to stretch your femur away from your pelvis. And, you definetely don't want yours to end up like the one in the picture.  

In any case, it's hard to believe it's not a femur, correct? It's just plain and unassuming, and if it is a rock, then the resemblance to a human bone is uncanny. But get this. That picture is from the Curiosity rover. And guess where that thing is right now?

Not Earth.

After reading NASA's opinion on it, I feel like they want to let go of this thing faster than you do Ted, who you realize might have the world's strongest grip and is starting to crush your ankle. You start to shake him off but that bastard just won't let go.

Meanwhile, NASA's claiming that the femur is not a femur. It's just a rock shaped that way after years of erosion tore away at it and left it nothing but a crooked, malformed husk of what it used to be. 

"Like my wife did to me! I can relate to science. Yay!" 

They further slash our hopes by saying Mars likely never had enough oxygen to support life big enough to have a femur that large. It's a cold, dry, ball. Just like Bill O'Reilly's left nut. (And, possibly right.)

For those wondering why the cosmos decreed Mars to be a desolate wasteland, its atmosphere was torn apart by a series of asteroid impacts eons ago. The heat from the explosion disrupted the planet's nucleus and weakened its gravity. It also kicked a lot of Mars itself into space. Mars, being small, already had a weak gravity. Beyond that, the asteroids hitting it were big. I mean BIG. Remember that one asteroid that hit the Yucatan peninsula and wiped out Littlefoot and the rest of the dinos from The Land Before Time? Some asteroids were even bigger. After the cataclysmic collisions, Mars' gravity was unable to hold onto its atmosphere. It bled, and there was nothing it could do about it. 

But, it did have an atmosphere. And, even if NASA is claiming there wasn't enough oxygen to support complex life of the large femur variety, in my hands I hold an article that might just be a bitch slap to NASA's argument. It claims that O2 (not to be confused with U2) is not necessary for...get this...complex life. 

I have to admit, I am a bit skeptical. The researchers in the article base their study on a sea sponge, which doesn't exactly conjure the finesse and intellect that the title 'complex life' alludes. 

"I'll have you know, good sir, I graduated summa cum laude in astrophysics."

However, all it takes for an organism to be considered complex is to have specialized tissues. And, sea sponges have them, apparently. Being that it is a complex organism, standard convention dictates it requires plenty of oxygen to live. Yet, deep in the recesses of Denmark's icy fjords, sponges were uncovered that were living with only a measly fraction of the fart-scented air you're about to breath in. 

The sponges, possibly upset about being forcibly removed from their homes, were then taken to a lab and experimented on. Because, they're just sponges and no one really cares if they're upset. Testing revealed that they could still survive when the oxygen dropped as low as 0.5%. For reference, normal air contains 21%. 

Right now, Mars only has 0.13% oxygen. It's not enough even for the elite sponges. So, the chances of present life are pretty slim. Past life, though, is another story. Mars would have had a much higher oxygen concentration before losing its atmosphere. So long as the amount was higher than 0.5%, some forms of complex life could have developed. And they'd be dropping femurs all over the place.

So, is NASA covering this up? Are they testing the object to determine if it is from a living source? I haven't the answers to that. I do know that NASA has done plenty of cover ups before. Take the Black Knight Satellite, for instance.

If you think it looks like a Decepticon's toenail, you are an awesome person. 

In 1960, the US discovered a satellite in polar-orbit. Neither they, nor the USSR (the greatest powers at the time) were capable of launching anything into that type of orbit. Nor could they construct anything as large as the Black Knight, which was several times larger than any of their satellites. What's freaky is that it was giving off messages that when decoded revealed a star chart as it would appear from Earth 13,000 years ago. Meaning, the thing is 13,000 years old.

You'd be hard pressed to find any official reports on what exactly that thing is. It was a mystery then, and is a mystery now. Whoever has the answers (*cough...NASA...*cough) isn't coming forward with them. That means one of two possibilities. (1) The Black Knight actually is an alien craft, or (2) no one still has any clue. I imagine that since people have had 50 years since the 60's to study the thing, surely someone has a lead.

But, I digress. Unfortunately, you haven't been able to shake off Ted. You did, however, find the strength to pull the both of you back up over the cliff. Congratulations on surviving. Now run for your life, because Ted's mad and hungry. And all your Snickers fell off the edge.

* \m/ *

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Axel Fretson

Follow @AxelFrets

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Millennial Issues #1: Helicopter Parenting (Get Away from da Chopper!)

I like the the Millennial generation. Mostly, because I'm part of it. Oh, wait? Did that sound conceited? Sorry, let me rephrase that: I like being a part of my generation. After all, Being a Millennial has its perks. Notably, that we're called freaking Millennials! Like we're some kind of ancient alien race that will duke it out with the Avengers.

We'd lose horribly, of course. But, I think it'd be an honor to be taken out by a Hulk smash. And, if by some miracle we happen to be victorious, a greater enemy still lurks in the corners. This enemy is not to be trifled with. They are masters of deception and manipulation. Your life is but a puppet animated by their strings. The perspective on life you have has been molded by them. Not all of us have encountered them. But, there are those among us who have. 

I speak, of course, about helicopter parents. 

Not this kind. 

At its simplest, helicopter parenting is synonymous with overprotective parents. Here is a laundry list of all their stained undies:

1) They are embarrassed by their children's failures and will do anything to tuck the situation under a rug. 
2) They do their child's homework. (Not as great as it sounds.)
3) They hover over their child's social circle like a dog that just discovered a good fire hydrant. 
4) Their children deserve love only when they are successful.
5) They fight their child's battles. 
6)  They fear for their child's well-being so much that they won't allow them to take any risks. 

Let's be clear here. They're not the monsters I portray them to be. They just have a different set of ideals for their children. Yet, therein lies a very big problem. These parents' ideals drive their kids towards becoming this meme:

"That's a great finger you have their, sir! I hope it finds its way to many vaginas!"

The offspring of helicopter parents become sheltered. And, being sheltered sucks. To sum it up nice and sweet, life is a bitch for most people. To sheltered kids, life is a bitch with PMS. Imagine the distraught on an elementary teacher's face when they find out one of their students still can't tie their shoes. It's not that the kid is stupid. It's that his or her parents have been tying their shoes for them. And, they will continue doing this (metaphorically, at least) as the child grows older. As a result? The child develops slower than peers. It becomes difficult to form friends or handle stressful situations, or to really do anything on their own. What's worse, bullies seek these kids out like there's free bacon to be had. 

"I smell some bacon in need of bullying."

Since the kid can't yet handle stress, imagine what must be going through their head during their first wedgie. They're not inclined to fight back. They're looking for mommy and daddy to take care of the problem for them. But, mommy and daddy want to ignore the problem. (See item 1 in stained undies list). And, the bullying keeps going. Eventually, their mind is berated by the constant abuse, and a host of psychological problems comes knocking. 

"Your tea should have steam

sans depression and low self-esteem."

- A Host of Psychological Problems

Adolescence is especially rough. To helicopter parents, their child is stuck in a jungle, and life is a Predator. They are the chopper. And their child needs to 'get to da chopper' rather than explore what the jungle has to offer. Ridiculous curfews, limited social interaction, and quiet desperation plague adolescents succumb to the whims of their helicopter parents. 

All this amounts to the kid failing at adult life. Going to college and being away from parents is a tough adjustment. They have a hard time socializing and balancing academic pursuits. Many flunk. And then there is the workplace. Like before, it ain't pretty for them. They haven't developed the necessary skills to survive, let alone thrive in it. 

They don't even get to be in the picture.

What makes this all a Millennial issue? For starters, the term is relatively new. It was coined in 1990 by Jim Fay, a professional consultant in parenting. 1990 happens to fall within the range of birth years for us Millennials. (1980-1995). So, Millennials are the first generation to have parents described as helicopters. (That actually sounds pretty rad.) Also, parents are far more involved in their children's lives than in the past. My theory is that since college is considered such a necessity now, so many parents believe their child will not succeed unless they get to college. Some parents will do anything it takes to get their children there. These are the types that turn into helicopters. 

"Kids, your mom just turned into a helicopter. How's about we take a family photo?!"

Because of this, it's hard to place blame on them. They merely want their child to succeed. It's just, they need to back off a little. Parental involvement can be good. Children with the right amount of parental involvement end up with better grades and fewer behavioral problems. And, they're also less likely to get bullied! 

"I smell some bacon in need of...you know what? This one might actually be just jerky."

Those of you reading this that have experienced this firsthand, the following is for you. 

Sometimes, you just have to get away from the chopper and face the Predator. Keep in mind, the chopper isn't their to hurt you. It is designed to help you. If the Predator is too tough for you, by all means do fall back to the chopper to recuperate. But, don't let it fight the Predator for you. Just keep tackling the Predator till you get a good grip on it. You will be a better person because of it.*

* \m/ *

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*Disclaimer: This author is not liable for any bodily injury or death due to the tackling of an actual Predator.  

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